Sermon for Sunday, October 15, 2023 || Proper 23A || Philippians 4:1-9
In this week of bullets and bombs, of terror and retaliation, of so many dead in a part of the world that always seems one explosion away from the end, I began writing this sermon with zero words on my lips or in my heart. So I did what I always do in that situation. I read poetry, because poetry does not ask you to make sense of the world, only to see the world with new eyes that might, in time, retrain your heart towards beauty. I’m going to begin and end this sermon with poems and we’ll see how the middle shakes out.
The first poem is by a young British poet of Somali origin named Warsan Shire. The poem is called “What They Did Yesterday Afternoon.”
they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
This poem speaks to me of the intense personal nature of war and destruction, as well as the universal nature of suffering. We look across the world and see suffering of one kind or another everywhere. The immensity and the particularity of the world’s suffering shackles me into inaction. As this suffering begins “folding me at the middle / like a five pound note,” I realize that I could either be crumpling in on myself or I could be folding in prayer, bending my body towards God and asking what I can do to alleviate this suffering, if only a trace amount.
And God speaks a single word to me, whispers it like the breeze. The word is “peace,” the “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” as Paul says today to the church in Philippi.
In Arabic, this word is “Salaam.” In Hebrew, this word is “Shalom.” Both are greetings, both are hopes. This is the word on Jesus’ lips throughout the Gospel. “Blessed are those who make peace,” he says in the Beatitudes. “Peace be with you,” he says to his disciples when they are huddled together in the upper room after the crucifixion. And here in Paul’s letter, the apostle picks up this same language. It’s Paul’s last use of the word “peace” that I’d like to focus on for a minute. He says, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”
And the God of peace will be with you. This “And” here makes it sound like a conditional promise. In other words, “Keep on doing these things so that the God of peace will be with you.” We’re tempted to think that we need to become worthy of God’s presence by doing what Paul tells us to do. It would like a parent telling their child, “Score three goals tonight, and I’ll be proud of you.” We’re so used to the transactional nature of our broken world that we, sort of, expect God to operate as transactionally as we do. This for that. Tit for tat. You scratch my back…
But that’s not who God is. The God of peace is the origin of all things, the primal mover of the universe. We never initiate anything where God is concerned. We only ever respond. So, when Paul says, “The God of peace will be with you,” he’s not talking about a reward for good behavior. He’s talking about a motivation, a catalyst, a promise. The God of peace will be with you: how does that promise unleash us? How does that promise unfold us and keep us from crumpling inward due to the weight of calamity? How does knowing the God of peace is always present change our hearts and our lives? In a world of immense global and personal suffering, how does the God of peace break you open and pour the peace that surpasses all understanding upon every encounter, every relationship, every moment of our days?
These are the questions on heart my this week. I commend them to you. As we walk in the presence of the God of peace, I remember a framed saying that hung on the wall of my parents’ house throughout my childhood. I asked my mother about it this week, and she said she had heard it from my grandmother. In the framed picture, the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers with an olive branch in its mouth. And on a blue field in white letters is written, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”*
We walk the way of the God of peace. The walk itself is the way we will help change the world. And that brings me to the second poem. I will end today’s sermon with these stirring words from one of my favorite poets, Christa Swenson, who happens to be the pastor down the street at Mystic Congregational Church. In her poem, “Write Some New Agenda,” Christa prays in these words:
O Thou in whom the nations are united….
Beneath edgy borders,
Treaties which define friends and enemies,
The marching songs of a thousand armies,
And languages of wondrous difference,
Each with a word for love,
Each with a word for peace:
Write some new agenda for a world
healed into our hearts this day.
For even as we draw lines of wire and blood
across the face of the earth;
as we write treaties,
each more comprehensive than the last;
while trumpets and drums excite the worst in us;
and while we argue with each other
in the foreign tongues of belligerence, ownership and power –
the universe itself speaks with the vocabulary of shalom.
The wind blows across every border.
The sun warms every face,
The stars beguile every opened eye.
The earth opens its arms to all of its children,
Providing a feeding place,
A growing place,
A loving place,
And, at last, a resting place.
O Thou ancient Holy One:
In your wisdom, the universe unfolds
in the direction of wholeness and truth and beauty.
Make this fragile planet and us,
thy wayward children,
a part of that journey, we pray.
* This is a quote from 20th century Christian pacifist pastor and labor organizer A.J. Muste.
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